


the sinners and the saints

by call_me_steve



Series: saint bernard [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: ?? i guess im not really religious but it talks abt, Angst, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne Went to Hell, Damian has some internal conflict, Dick Grayson is Ric Grayson, Duke Thomas and Cassandra Cain are precious thanks, Ewwww, Gen, Heaven & Hell, Hurt/Comfort, Religious Themes, Sinners & Saints, Steph is a good BRO OK, Tim Drake & Jason Todd are Good Brothers, and dick grayson is ric, and the lot, but dami is too thickheaded to get the comfort part, cuz he went to hell, i should put tags like, i'm a tag rambler im so sorry, idk - Freeform, lol, okay so, probably, this takes place in the timeline where alfred died 'cuz of bane sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/call_me_steve/pseuds/call_me_steve
Summary: "“I was ready to die for you,” Damian said, so long ago, in a voice so small, so little, so soft. “I would’ve. I would’ve. For you.”And then he did."--Damian remembers Hell. He is a sinner among countless saints.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Damian Wayne, Damian Wayne & Everyone, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Series: saint bernard [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676998
Comments: 12
Kudos: 296





	the sinners and the saints

**Author's Note:**

> ok this is all over the place and prob doesn't flow cuz i wrote it in like one sitting bUT I'Ve gOT feeLInGS okay
> 
> alternative summary: everyone thinks damian's _good_ , but damian does not. (he can only see the good in everyone _else_.)
> 
> o, the tumblr, by the by: [potato-reblob](https://potato-reblob.tumblr.com/)

“I was ready to _die_ for you,” Damian said, so long ago, in a voice so _small_ , so _little,_ so _soft._ “I would’ve. I _would’ve._ For _you._ ” 

And then he did.

* * *

Damian remembers waking up, a too-hard and too-old mattress beneath him, to a wall full of scratches as he tried to keep a semblance of time together. He remembers his ratty blanket that he’d stolen, the lamp that he kept near him out of fear. 

He remembers Hell, but he doesn’t say a single word about it. 

He _knows_ that Jason went to Heaven, that he doesn’t _remember_ it. The saints never do, but the sinners are cursed and Damian has not been _good_ in his past life. He has killed and maimed and _destroyed,_ taken villages into his hands and _crushed_ them like bugs, because his mother whispered into his ear that they were _pests,_ that they threatened his Grandfather’s goal.

Damian has always valued family, higher than anything in his life. Grandfather had been family, once upon a time. 

And so he regrets, he regrets all of the blood that he’s shed that wasn’t his, and believes that every time his own blood spills to the ground, he’s atoning for everything he’s done.

He regrets. He remembers. He remains _reserved._

There’s no doubt in his mind that his brothers have an inkling of where Damian went, during his death. Everytime Damian wakes up in one of their beds, it’s a frantic _fear_ that drives him to check the wall at the head of it- no tally marks to be found. Everytime Drake makes a comment about him being a _demon,_ it's an irrational _ire_ that makes Damian scream at him. 

Todd and Damian, they talk sometimes. Being the only two Robins to really _die-_ (Drake disappeared, Father _vanished,_ Grayson- Damian doesn’t like talking about him)- beside Stephanie Brown, there’s a bond there that Damian _knows_ not to ignore. They’re a source of comfort for each other, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it. 

Not once has Damian ever said: _I went to Hell, you know? I talked with demons, I_ survived _and I didn’t let it hurt me._

If he did, would he be speaking the _truth_ in the end? Did he _really_ survive? Did he _really_ not let it hurt him? 

Sometimes, too, Damian remembers a time _before_ Hell. Before demons and hideouts and _memories_ that keep abusing him. He remembers Father, remembers getting to know him before everything happened and Father grew distant. 

He remembers Nobody and the boat, the place he _should’ve_ died at. 

(But, in the end, he’d said, _I’d die for you,_ and he paid the price.) 

At least, out of _Nobody_ came _Maya._ There’s a lot of things in his life that have turned out like that- a terrible mistake that he’d pulled _didn’t_ bite him in the ass for once. Or, if it did, it came with some sort of reprieve. Like Goliath. Like leaving Mother and meeting G-

(Damian doesn’t like to talk about Grayson. About _Ric._ )

But, that’s not all the time. Not _everything_ turns out _good._

He got Pennyworth- (his _grandfather,_ his-)- _killed_ because he’d taken a step into Gotham too early at Father’s command.

Father blames Damian, and Damian blames _himself_. His father has always had a no killing rule and Damian has always had blood on his hands. They are not meant for each other. They are not meant to be father and son, because saints are blessed and Damian is cursed. 

All he has left is Drake and Todd. 

(And Gordon’s daughter, the Oracle, and Cassandra Cain, and Stephanie Brown, and Duke Thomas. And the Kents and Maya Ducard and everyone in between.)

* * *

When the night seems almost _too_ dark, Damian hides away in Barbara’s clocktower, wearing a mask that doesn’t feel like his. He hasn’t gone out as Robin since he watched Bane snap his gra- snap _Pennyworth’s_ neck, since Gotham was reclaimed and the Bats started roaming again. 

The clocktower is quiet and safe. It’s the closest to Heaven that Damian can get. 

Barbara’s soft muttering into the comms are normally enough to lull Damian into a light sleep, since he _hasn’t_ been sleeping lately. She talks to Batman, sometimes, talks to Catwoman. Damian cuts his visits short when he hears their voices, Father’s voice too loud in his head, Selina’s smile too prominent in his mind. After a while, Damian stops hearing their voices. Barbara stops talking to them aloud, when Damian’s around. 

“I stuck up for you,” she says, once. “I told Bruce to apologize.” 

“For what?” Damian asks back. “What could _Father_ possibly have to apologize to _me_ for?” 

Barbara looks at him, and her eyes look tired, her face looks sad. Losing Grayson hasn’t only put a weight on Damian’s shoulders, losing _Pennyworth_ hasn’t only affected Damian too. Barbara is mourning because Damian can’t seem to do anything _right_ anymore. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she tells him.

She’s not only talking about Pennyworth. 

Barbara Gordon is a saint, and Damian is not, so Damian doesn’t return after that. He can’t afford to. He’s carrying a plague and only those who are immune can withstand it’s symptoms.

* * *

_Tim_ has a lot to say, for someone who’d once sworn he hated Damian with his whole being. They’ve gotten past it, after Damian’s resurrection, after the funeral. Since he’s Damian’s newest guardian- has been, on and off, since Father has a habit of being unsuited for the role- Damian has been living with him and Jason. 

In the nights that Damian finds himself curled up beside Tim, Tim has a lot to say. 

_Bruce might blame you, but I don’t,_ he says, first. _It wasn’t your fault, Damian,_ he says. _I came to save you from Darkseid because I loved you. So did Bruce, once,_ he says. 

Damian can’t find it in himself to believe him, anymore. Maybe once he’d have listened to his brother’s words, have clung to them with all of his might, have _prayed_ that they were law because when the world is falling to pieces, there’s only one thing to do and that is to pray. 

God has never been on Damian’s side, though. Not lately. Not recently. (Not ever.) The saints flock to Him, but Damian is no _saint_ and he has no _God_ to run to. 

“You’re good,” Timothy Jackson Drake whispers, in the dead of the night. “You’re _good._ ” 

“Liars don’t go to Heaven,” Damian Wayne (a boy with no middle name, because this is not the first name that his mother has given him) replies, voice booming among the quiet. “You don’t deserve to go to hell.” 

Tim Drake isn’t quite a saint, none of the Bats are anymore, but Hell does not suit him. Damian won’t let him go.

* * *

They haven’t only _both_ died, but Jason Todd is the closest thing to a sinner as Damian has found. He has blood on his hands, but he’d never been _forced_ to do it, not like Cass had. (Cass is a saint, and nothing can make Damian say otherwise. Cass is the _best_ of them, the only one who _deserves_ to take the cowl after Father is gone, because she is the only one _great_ enough to bear the title. She’s the only one strong enough not to crumble.) 

Jason has killed, Jason has died, Jason has _breathed_ and _lived_ and _seen._

“I wish I remembered the afterlife,” Jason says, on the roof one night, when Damian comes to join him. “All I remember is crawling out of my grave.” 

“And Mother?” Damian suggests. 

“And Talia,” Jason amends. He looks down at his hands. “The pit. My eyes used to be blue, y’know? Just like Dickhead’s- like Bruce’s.” 

Father is a sore spot for them both. They’ve both failed him in every way possible, taken his name and his legacy and gave him something to _hate_ about it. They’ve both tried and failed and _ruined._ Their hands are red and their eyes are green and Mother has not left either of them in peace. 

“You went to Heaven,” Damian says. “You died for nothing, and you were rewarded a blessing.” 

Jason snorts, eyes cast towards the sky. “Believe me, kid, I’m no saint. I- even back then, I don’t _think_ I deserved Heaven. But- _you,_ kid? God, _believe me_ when I say that _you_ deserve Heaven more than _all_ of us combined. You _died_ for this city. For her people.” 

Damian died and went to hell, but he did not _die_ for the city he stands in, he did not _die_ for the people in it. 

( _I’d die for you,_ rings in his head. _I was_ ready _to die for you._ ) 

“I didn’t do it for Gotham,” Damian says, and his voice feels like it _should_ shatter. It holds strong. He remembers tally marks and lanterns and ratty things that he could call _his._

“None of us did,” Jason replies. 

Jason isn’t a sinner. He might be close, but he breathes like a saint, lives like a bastard, cries like a fourteen year old boy with the entire world ahead of him. 

* * *

Stephanie Brown died, once. Damian doesn’t know where she went. 

“I went to Heaven,” she claims, “they had big pearly gates and the guy taking our admission slips looked like Bob Ross.” 

“Saints don’t remember the afterlife,” Damian says. Steph isn’t in any way a sinner, she has no blood on her hands and she’s crawled her way up from the bottom of the barrel. He tells her about liars and how they go to Hell. 

“I guess you don’t remember yours, then,” Steph replies. “You’re gonna be the best of us, one of these days. It just takes a little time.” 

She died, once. Damian _thinks_ he knows where she went. 

* * *

Duke Thomas never died. Damian hopes he never will, not until he’s old and his hair has gone silver and his bones start to ache. He reminds Damian of sunflowers, of golden summer days. 

“I am Robin,” he’d said. 

Damian isn’t, anymore, so maybe Duke can be. He’s a saint through and through, and he deserves the title more than Damian ever did. 

* * *

_“I was ready to_ die _for you,” Damian said. The R on his chest feels dull and heavy. “I would’ve, too.”_

 _“I know, Dames,” Dick said back, ruffling his hair. “But you don’t have to. I don’t_ want _you to, ‘cause I like you alive and happy and with_ me, _okay?”_

_Damian looked up at this man, with a smile larger than life itself and brighter than the sun in the sky. “Okay.”_

_Liars don’t go to Heaven._

_(Damian is a liar, and the day that Heretic slid his sword through Damian’s chest, it was for Dick Grayson and no one else.)_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It Was Only Supposed To Be A Distraction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23292997) by [AmorDamozel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmorDamozel/pseuds/AmorDamozel)




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